Make Time For Love

by Louise Clark

  “Did she divorce you?”

  “Yup. It was a big blow to my ego at the time, but I later decided it was one of those things that was for the best.”

  Faith understood Cody well enough by now to know that title and position weren’t important to him. “Your ex must have been pretty self-centered to have believed you would change your style because she thought it would be a good idea.”

  He laughed, again without a lot of humor. “She was one of those people who liked to organize everything and everyone. She’d plan out my day and arrange my schedule. At first I thought it was amazingly generous of her, because she had a full load of courses and as much to do as I did. Later I came to realize she was controlling me. That’s when I started questioning everything she did. By then it was too late, though. We were already married.”

  Faith sighed, having some understanding of what he was going through. “I’ve never had a serious relationship that ended in a painful breakup, but my parents’ divorce was pretty bitter.” She reached across the picnic basket, placing her hand over the back of his. “If it means anything, I think she was a big dummy for trying to change who you are.”

  He turned his hand so he could clasp hers. “You mean you don’t care that it takes me hours to get down to fix your computer problems?”

  She laughed. “Yes, I care! That’s work, Cody. I have to be organized in my job and I expect the people I work with to be equally efficient. At home, though. At home is different. People are what they are and they deserve the freedom of living their lives the way they want to. And that includes career and lifestyle choices.”

  He stared down at their entwined fingers, then looked up and flashed her that wicked, heart-breaking smile of his. “I wish you’d been around when I was an undergrad. You’d have saved me from making a big mistake.”

  “I’m here now,” she said softly.

  He leaned toward her, his gaze intent. Faith guessed that he wanted to kiss her, but the picnic basket was between them and there were people wandering across the park, along the sidewalks. He cleared his throat and instead lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.

  The caress burned through Faith, igniting a firestorm of feeling. No matter how open the park, how public every action was, it would be easy to forget everything and let the moment get out of hand. She had to do something to get them both talking again, now, before her body took over from her brain.

  Desperately she went back to where the conversation had been before they’d detoured onto the rough road of broken relationships. “So did you meet Mel when you were at university?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. Instead he turned her hand and took his time kissing the throbbing vein on the underside of her wrist. Faith almost groaned.

  Finally he carefully put her hand on her lap and said, “I was working on my Ph.D. The high tech company where I was employed had grown, but there wasn’t a whole lot of cash. Salaries were low and they paid out bonuses in the form of equity. The company was bought out by a heavy-weight player in the industry, so my shares were suddenly worth a whole bunch of money. After the buyout I had to sign a non-compete clause that said I wouldn’t work for another company in the same industry again for three years. That was fine with me. I had enough money to live well and still focus on completing the degree. I’m not much of a cook and I liked Mel’s food, so I spent a lot of time at La Renaissance.” He smiled. “You know the rest.”

  “I don’t really. I know you did the project for Mel and that you’ve been employed by NIT for the past six months. But I don’t understand why you’re working for us, if you have enough money to live independently and do projects like the one you did for Mel.”

  He spread his hands out, palms upward. “Faith, I don’t know if you’ll understand, but…NIT offered me creative freedom, as well as a financial package that I couldn’t turn down.”

  She considered that, watching him. “I’d heard the money part. I didn’t know creative freedom was so important.”

  He laughed. “It’s my key. The multinational asked me to stay on after the takeover. I did for a while, but they expected me to wear a suit and keep regular hours even if I’d worked for forty-eight straight on the weekend. It was as if I was punching a clock.” He paused. “I felt the same way I did that first year in university pre-med. I hated it. So I quit, even though I didn’t know where I’d work again. I had the non-compete clause, so I couldn’t go into the same field. The work I did for Mel showed me there were other uses for my skills, but I still didn’t know how to market them. Or even if anyone other than a small operation like Mel’s would be interested in a…freak…like me. When my Ph.D supervisor suggested NIT contact me, it was a validation of everything I’d done with my life. ”

  Faith stared at him in disbelief. “You see yourself as a freak?”

  He smiled ruefully and shrugged. “As different anyway. I don’t fit into neat categories, Faith. I work without stopping when the urge is upon me, I’m a clock watcher’s nightmare, and I like to follow my own path.” He reached out, stroked her cheek. “Do you think you can tolerate that about me?”

  His words echoed in her heart. He would understand, she thought joyfully. He wouldn’t condemn her for being a Beacon. She was certain of it. Liz was right. She needed to tell him. “Cody, do you think you’d like to come over and meet my family on Saturday night?”

  Chapter 16

  “Dad’s in town.”

  “What?” Faith blinked at her sister who was standing framed in the front doorway. She opened the door wider. “No, he’s not. He’s working on that mega-project in China.”

  Liz flew into the house, urgency in her expression and movement. The fabric of her flowing skirt swirled about her ankles, like the froth of an incoming wave. “Wrong! Dad’s here! He called me yesterday as soon as his plane got in.” She shoved a bowl filled with salad greens at Faith. “He wanted to have dinner with me tonight.”

  Faith’s fingers curled around the bowl as Liz gulped and brushed past her. She kicked the door closed and followed her sister. “But you’re here.”

  Liz stopped in the middle of the perfectly proportioned hall and turned to Faith. Her eyes pleaded for understanding. “Yeah. And Dad will be too. Faith, I am so sorry!”

  Faith opened her mouth then closed it again without uttering a sound. This could not be happening. Not tonight. Finally she said thinly, “You invited Dad to my dinner party for Cody?”

  Liz nodded unhappily. “He is family.”

  Only the distress in her sister’s eyes kept Faith from snapping an angry reply. Liz had been their father’s favorite and he in turn had always known how to coax her into doing whatever he wanted. “You know why I’ve invited Cody tonight?”

  Liz nodded. Her expression said she was miserably aware that she’d gone way beyond sisterly limits this time.

  “Mom’s in the kitchen,” Faith said helplessly. “They weren’t even civil to each other the last time we all got together.”

  They stared at each other. “Oh, Faith! Oh, hell, I wish I hadn’t done this!” Liz said again. She sounded as if she was on the verge of tears. “He called and I said I was coming over here tonight and he said, ‘I haven’t seen Faith in years—’”

  “Three years,” Faith said, a hint of bitterness in her voice. “His choice, not mine.”

  Elizabeth nodded miserably. “And then he said ‘We argued the last time I saw her—’”

  “He told me I would never succeed in the real world because I was a Beacon. I remember that night vividly. I was starting at NIT the next day. It was a real boost to my confidence.”

  Liz shrugged helplessly. “He wants to make amends.”

  Faith stared at her sister. She didn’t know why Daniel Hamilton wanted to come to her family dinner tonight, but she sincerely doubted that it was because he wanted to straighten out his relationship with his eldest daughter. She couldn’t say that aloud, however. She wouldn’t ruin the relationship Liz had with th
eir father, just because it was different from hers. “Maybe he does. Look, Mom’s in the kitchen. We’d best tell her what’s up.” They headed across the hall. “Does Dad know Mom is going to be here?”

  Liz brightened and nodded. “I told him he had to be good or else he couldn’t come. He said he would.”

  “I’ll bet,” Faith muttered. They reached the kitchen. Dressed in a crimson silk blouse, tailored white trousers, and a bibbed apron to protect her outfit, Chloe Hamilton was at the counter stirring batter in an old-fashioned stoneware mixing bowl. She looked around when her daughters entered. “Strawberry shortcake for dessert. Do you think Cody will like it, Faith?”

  “Sure. Mom…” She couldn’t finish. She put the salad bowl on the table and looked at Elizabeth. “It’s your news. You tell her.”

  Liz said, “Ummmm, Mom.”

  Chloe stopped stirring and narrowed her eyes. She looked from one daughter to the other. “Something is wrong. What is it?”

  Liz cleared her throat, fiddled with her hair, and finally said in a rush, “Dad’s coming tonight.”

  “I see.” Chloe returned to her stirring. “Is that all? I thought something dreadful had happened.”

  Liz and Faith looked at each other. Faith supposed her expression was as baffled as her sister’s was. “So you’re okay with seeing Dad?”

  Chloe poured the batter into cake pans. “It’s a good thing this recipe serves six. With your father’s sweet tooth, he’s bound to want at least two servings.” When she finished she set the bowl down and turned to face her daughters. As she thoughtfully wiped her fingers on the apron, she said, “Your father and I have had our differences…”

  That was putting it mildly, Faith thought.

  “But we’re adults and we can deal with it.”

  Chloe’s comment set off warning bells in Faith’s head. Though her mother was reasonable and calm away from her father, meetings between her parents tended to be filled with hostility. The sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach deepened. This was not going to work. “Liz, can you call Dad and tell him that I’ll see him another time? He can come over tomorrow. Or we can meet somewhere for dinner.”

  The doorbell rang. Faith groaned.

  Liz moistened her lips. “I think we’re too late.”

  “It might be Cody,” Faith said. She glanced at her watch. She’d invited Cody to arrive a good forty-five minutes after her family had assembled. There were still thirty minutes to go. Since Cody resisted schedules he might just be early tonight, rather than late. She could hope.

  Hope fled as she opened the door to find her father standing there. There was a bottle of wine in his hands. He held it out like a peace offering. “Hi,” he said.

  She stared at him. Dressed in a golf shirt and beige slacks, he looked chunkier than the last time she’d seen him. His dark hair had wings of gray at the temples and there were lines on his face she hadn’t noticed before. He was still much the same as she remembered him from her childhood, though. That narrow face and the nose with a bit of a hook to it, set off by a mouth with lips that were thin and kept tightly closed, even in repose, and a chin with a determined jut. Throughout her childhood this was the man she had wanted to please more than anyone in her world, and he was the man who had rejected her because she was different. Because she was a Beacon.

  And now he was here at her house with some goofy idea of reconciliation on the same night she’d invited the new man in her life to meet her family. The night when she planned to tell him that she drew people from the past into the present. That she was a Beacon.

  “Hi.” She stared at her father. Did she open the door wider to allow him to come in? Or did she turn him away? She had not invited him. She didn’t want him here, but he was her father. He was family.

  Daniel Hamilton was not a man who relished losing control. He did as he had always done in Faith’s life. He took command and made the decision. He thrust the bottle of wine into Faith’s hands and stepped forward. Automatically, she retreated and before she knew it he was inside the house.

  Faith looked at the wine and then at her father, who had halted his charge in the middle of the hall. “Thanks,” she said. Holding the bottle in one hand, away from her body, she closed the door behind her father.

  Daniel contemplated her with that cool, assessing stare that had always made Faith squirm inwardly. Finally he said, “You look well, Faith.”

  The comment, as mild as it had been, was an approval. A warmth spread through her. “Thanks, Dad. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”

  With that small social ritual done, they stared at each other. The uneasy silence highlighted the enormous emotional gap that loomed between them. As the little burst of pleasure in being with her father fizzled and died, Faith realized it had been nothing more than a holdover from a teenage fantasy. Daddy loves you. Daddy thinks you’re the greatest. You can wrap Daddy around your little finger like all the other girls do. None of it was true. The reality was that this man might be her biological father, but his emotional connection to her existed only in her own mind.

  “You know Mom’s here.”

  He nodded. “Elizabeth warned me you’d invited her.”

  Warned. Faith didn’t think there could be a better description of her troubled family dynamics. They didn’t gather together in spontaneous, joyous pleasure, they warned each other they were coming.

  “By the way, is Elizabeth here yet?”

  “In the kitchen with Mom. That’s where we’re gathering, so you might as well come through.”

  As she walked with her father across the hall to the kitchen she thought about the evening to come. She had invited Cody tonight because she liked him, a lot, and she was ready to move their relationship back to that hot, passionate level they’d reached the night he’d taken her to Mountain Madness.

  But she couldn’t do it until she’d bared her soul. Until she’d told him she was a Beacon.

  And that was the problem.

  Her mother and Liz knew she was serious about Cody, that she hoped he would accept her for who she was, that she needed to take the ultimate risk and tell him that she was not just an ordinary young woman with a business degree trying to make a career. They understood that she could not live a lie, pretending she was like everyone else, keeping her ability a secret, and still commit to the kind of intense, passionate relationship she wanted to have with Cody.

  They knew how much she desired to fit in, how deeply she feared rejection because of her ability. How much more intensely she wished she’d never told Andrew to stop visiting and how desperately she wanted him to ignore her demand.

  They were behind her, supporting her, whatever happened. When the time came for Faith to take that risk, to tell Cody what she was, they would give her space, but they’d be there to help her if he rejected her, to cuddle her when she cried, to bitch with her about how stupid Cody was, to tear apart his character until they were all satisfied that Faith had had a miraculous escape from an arrogant male jerk. And if Cody accepted her ability, they’d be there to celebrate and welcome him into their tight little circle.

  Daniel, on the other hand, saw her as a dangerous weirdo. If asked, he’d tell Cody to run away from Faith as fast as he could, without looking back.

  She knew she couldn’t do it. Not tonight. She couldn’t tell Cody what she was, not with her father sitting in the same room, his disapproval a black thundercloud above them.

  In the kitchen Chloe was slicing strawberries. Liz was sitting at the table, looking guilty. Chloe glanced briefly at her ex-husband when he entered the room, then refocused on her preparations. “Hello, Daniel.”

  “Chloe,” he said. He went over to Liz and wrapped her in a bear hug. “How’s my girl?”

  Liz squealed and laughed, her expression miraculously changed at the sight of her father. Faith’s stomach knotted. Emotion clogged the back of her throat. “Dad, did Liz tell you why I invited everyone over tonight?”
>
  Daniel Hamilton turned away from his favorite daughter, his normal daughter. “She mentioned something about a family get-together.”

  Oh man, he didn’t know! This was getting worse and worse. She moistened her lips. “I’ve invited a friend from work—” The doorbell rang. Faith froze. This had to be Cody. She glanced at her watch. He was a full fifteen minutes early. She looked desperately at her mother and sister. “You explain to him!” and went to answer the door.

  It was Cody. He was standing with his hands in the pockets of gray trousers that he’d matched with a dark blue shirt. There was an apologetic expression on his face. “I’m early,” he said, sounding quite surprised by that. “I didn’t think, that is, I hoped you wouldn’t mind.”

  He’s nervous, she thought. She beamed at him. Warmth flowed through her, easing a little of the tension generated by her father’s arrival. “No, I don’t mind.” She opened the door wider. “Come on in.”

  He looked relieved. She led him into the living room. There, in the middle of the room, the place where Uncle Andrew usually appeared, she stopped. Cody was frowning, reading the tension in her body language, but not understanding where it was coming from. Why would he? Helplessly, Faith raised her hands. “Cody, I’m sorry but…”

  He took a step toward her. She held him off with one hand, palm forward. “Tonight is going to be a disaster.”

  Standing poised, he scanned her face. He was so close that her senses took flight and she imagined how it would feel if he covered her lips with his, fantasized about the hot sex she’d planned for the hours after the Big Admission. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “My father is here!” The words came out as a wail. Horrified, she put her hand over her mouth. Staring into his concerned gaze, she told herself to get a grip. Drawing a deep, shuddering breath, she dropped her hand as she tried to do just that. “Liz mentioned she was coming over and he decided he would too. I didn’t invite him!”